Ctrl+Z! Undo spraypaint! NOOOOOO!!!!!

    I recently discovered that spraypainting models is not as easy as it sounds. The story starts 1 week back...
    Last weekend, my aunt said she would pay me & my brother $10 an hour if we helped her move furniture from her storage locker to her house. It ended up taking ~2.5 hours, but she was generous and paid us both $30. Sadly, I had already gone to HobbyHouse that weekend.
    So, I had to keep my money for a week. That didn't go as well as planned: I spent (on average) $2 on vending machines per day.
    But, when the next weekend came around, I got my allowance, $10, and was back to $30 for HobbyHouse. When I got there, I intended to get the first 3 models for "My Favorites" collection. However, I had trouble deciding, and before I could choose just 3, my dad suggested I buy some paint: PanzerGrau (Which I am in a serious shortage of) Spraypaint. So I got ANOTHER 1/76 Tiger I, a 1/76 JagdPanther, and the spraypaint. And that was all my $30.
    It started off bad. The 10th-ish piece I clipped off the sprue went flying, bounced 3 times (at least, 3 times I could hear), and landed in a place that remains unknown. I have it listed as MIA. But, I went on building (Jagdpanthers don't need all 24 roadwheels, 23 should work just as well, shouldn't it?). I finished the Tiger I with no trouble. But that's probably because I got so much practice with the first four...
    Anyways, when I got to the painting, things got much worse. I went out in my backyard to spraypaint, and started. However, the paint went on either too thickly, thinly, or unevenly.
    Recently, I decided to try scraping the paint off, and between a knife and some sandpaper I managed to remove quite a bit of paint. However, in the process I also accidentally severed the Jagdpanther's main gun barrel and machinegun barrel. However, that allowed me to also perfect any external glue drips.


You can't really see from this picture, but the supposedly flat color looks like camoflage.



My first 1/76 diorama is (almost) done!

As you probably inferred from the title, I have nearly completed my 1/76 diorama; my "Death of Michael Wittmann" diorama to be specific. (In case you don't know who/what Michael Wittmann is, google him. Tank ace of WWII.)
I am done constructing and painting 4 Tiger Is, 2 Sherman Mk.1s, and 1 Sherman Firefly Ic (even though the "c" is made redundant by me calling it a firefly, because, in the case of the sherman, adding a "c" to the designation made it a firefly.)
Now all I need to add is the scenery; for which plan on using my front yard (grass can grow 3 meters tall, can't it?) for which I need to wait for summer.

Apparently people in Italy like me...

Here are my audience stats:

Canada: 45 views

USA: 13 views (Aaaaaaaaah unlucky number! I would almost go to the US and look at my blog to change it)

UK: 7 views

Italy: 7 views

Netherlands: 5 views

Germany: 4 views

Japan: 4 views

Australia: 3 views

Czech Republic: 3 views

Poland: 2 views

Looked up term that led to my blog:

"jagdpanther" peices [sic] site:blogspot.com

Most viewed post:

Russo-German Diorama with 8 views

OMG!!! My Blog is SOOOOOOO popular! 93 views in 9 months? That's... 1 view every 3 days. Awww...

Now what I do find interesting is looking at the source pages (what people clicked to get to my blog):

A lot of people got here through looking for pics, my #1 being my Russo-German Diorama overview pic, #2 being my F-15, and #3 being my A-10.

Now, for something truly special. I clicked on the link I was given that was supposedly how someone got to my blog, and found a google image result. Only no "Google image result", more:

Putting the Pieces Together: Russo-German Diorama

Russo-German Diorama

piecestogether1.blogspot.com

• ภาพขนาดเต็ม - ขนาดเดียวกัน4x ขนาดใหญ่กว่า

ขนาด:	1600 × 1200
ประเภท:	161KB JPG

ภาพอาจมีลิขสิทธิ์

Can somebody read whatever that is? I can predict what it says though:
"Image"
"See Full Size Image - Same as image shown here"
"Dimentions:"
"Size:"
"Image may be subject to copyright laws".

My luck has come...

A couple weeks ago (yes, this post is very delayed) I finally found my previous modelling kit: a box, 2 knives, 20-ish paints, good paint thinner, a LOT of paint brushes, and a paintbrush-drying rag.
I combined that with my previous one, and found that I had too many paints! But with some reorganization, I managed to stuff it all together.
So I am happy.

1/76 Sherman and 1/76* Sherman Firefly

For those who don't know, the Sherman (designated "M4 Sherman" in the US military code) was an American tank that played a huge role in the second world war. It was a medium-weight, medium-armor tank, similar to that of the German panzer, only it had one major weakness: its gun. The German standard tank, the panzer IV (4, for those who don't know roman numerals), had similar armor, speed, etc. but had a much longer barrel, and could therefor shoot further, more accurately, and have more power.
I bought 2 of these:




Looking 3'o'clock High



The British, lacking a sufficient better tank design, decided to buy a few. By a few, I mean about 2,000. But the British realized that the Shermans' 75mm guns were to wimpy to take on the panzers. So they upgraded it with a 17-pdr cannon, which fires a 17-pound projectile. Although the 17-pdr was 76mm caliber, it had the anti-tank capabilities rivaling the German Tiger I's 88mm gun. Naturally, the British needed to call this upgraded tank something other than what the Americans called it, so they called it the "Firefly". Now this did not help with the Germans' nickname for shermans "Ronsons" (A cigarette lighter company, with the motto "Lights the first time, every time.") due to the flammability of the contents of the tanks.

I only bought 1 of these:

 

 

Looking 9'o'clock High





As you will notice in my model progress bar, I also bought 2 Tiger I's, but that is a completely other story.



Anyways, the Firefly only differed in the following ways:

-Bigger/longer main gun

-No front machinegun (More main ammo)

-Turret stretched backwards (To accomodate kickback)

And some other minor changes, like the mud flaps, which had more to do with American vs British, not Firefly vs Sherman (The Brits used regular Shermans too, just prefered Fireflies).

Now, compare them:









Very different, eh? Well thats what I get for betraying Revell and buying an Airfix model...



New Year!

Great! Didn't start out great though... Story time?
I got to bed at about 12:30 (midnight, dec. 31-Jan. 1), with a cramping stomach. I thought my stomach just wasn't used to eating as much as I did as late as I did. I was wrong. I woke up at about 2-3 am throwing up in my bed. I managed to get to a toilet, after puking 2 more times on the way. To make it worse, one of those ended up on my then-messy floor, and my first time got behind my bed. My sister cleaned the bathroom for me (I thanked her a lot) and I washed my bedding twice, but I just succeeded in making my room smell strongly of chlorine (like a pool, x2) and less like vomit. Luckily, it was gone by day 3.
But the new year got better! Another story...
I had a wrestling tournament (I told you I joined wrestling, didn't? Very painfully fun.) today. had to get up at 6:00 to be at school by 7:00, to leave school at 7:45, to get on a bus at 8:00, to arrive at the designated wrestling area at 9:00-ish. We warmed up until about 9:30, during which time I checked the schedule, I HAD THE FIRST MATCH OF THE DAY! :( :) ? Good and bad: no waiting, less preparation time. Nervous, I walked to the mat where I was supposed to wrestle, told the judges I was present, and they confirmed that I would have the first match. When they looked for my opponent, however, he was absent. So, by default, I won gold; the first win of the day, 5-0 (No clue how, but apparently I got 5 points for showing up.). Sadly, that meant I had to wait another 6 hours for the rest to finish; you'd be surprised how quickly I get bored of crossword.
They say showing up is 50% of the game; Well this time it was 100%.
So I'm happy! For now...

1/76 scale and 1/48 scale

1/76 scale: VERY VERY SMALL. But also very cheap. I bought a 1/76 Tiger I and a 1/76 Sherman Firefly for under $20, with enough left over to buy about 2 paints. I have only finished the construction and the base color of paint, and am convinced that it won't be easy to put on the rest of the paint.
Other than that, I have only one comment: do NOT buy the Airfix 1/76 Tiger I. The pieces were made very sloppily; there were little tabs (about the same size as numbering ones) almost everywhere. Very annoying.

1/48 scale: About the same as 1/35, my normal scale. However, the only 1/48 model I have (a Firefly IC) had 1 very unusual part: the hull was made of die-cast metal, "to add realistic weight and balance" which, from my perspective, was unnecesary and just made it annoying when handling different sub-assemblies.